Tailoring sustainable tourism indicators: Addressing the unique challenges of small island provinces in Indonesia
Abstract
Indicators for sustainable tourism on small islands should not be equated with those used for the mainland. Studies focusing on small islands further highlight significant limitations in transportation access, infrastructure, water availability, investment capacity, etc. These constraints must be carefully considered when developing appropriate and effective sustainability indicators for tourism in small islands. This 2025 study employed Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) to assess the sustainability of tourism development across Indonesia’s priority destinations. The dataset covers 7,158 islands across 12 priority tourism destination provinces. Monte Carlo analysis shows that island provinces perform well in the social and environmental dimensions. These findings highlight the need to integrate local social and environmental considerations into tourism planning and policy, particularly in small island regions where sustainability is crucial for long-term resilience. However, small island provinces perform poorly in the economic and physical dimensions of tourism sustainability. Their geography leads to the limited availability of clean water, infrastructure, high transportation costs and limited access to investment. Island Provinces such as Bangka Belitung, West Nusa Tenggara, North Maluku, Southeast Sulawesi, and East Nusa Tenggara exemplify these challenges. In contrast, non-island provinces demonstrate stronger sustainability in the economic and physical dimensions due to better infrastructure and greater investment capacity. Our research findings, which emphasize a major challenge faced by Small Island Developing States (SIDS): the systemic imbalance in the global financial architecture, infrastructure, water availability, and transportation.
Keywords: Economic, environment, island, physical, social, tourism
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